Page 48 of Forget Me Not

“I don’t think he would, Demi. I think he would understand you.” I understand the fear of being misunderstood. I tried to understand Lennox, and I never could. But this, Kade would get.

“Whether I was abused or not, he owes me an apology for tonight. He was a dick.”

I nod, agreeing with her.

“But I hear you. I promise I’ll tell him when I’m ready.” She pauses, a mischievous smile overtaking her face. “If you promise I, not Theo, can be maid of honor when you marry my brother.” I snort-laugh, not at all surprised that this is where the conversation has led us, considering this is Demi.

“If, heavy on the if, there is any sort of marriage, and I decide to have some extravagant wedding with bridesmaids and groomsmen, then I promise you’ll be maid of honor. Now, I’m going to shower the raccoon off of me and go to sleep.” I smile back at her and turn to walk toward the bathroom. “Plus, it’ll only make sense since Asher will probably be his best man. We can’t have Theo stealing your man from you,” I yell back to her, laughter following.

“Shut up, he’s not my man,” is the last thing I hear yelled back at me before I close my bedroom door behind me and walk into the connected bathroom.

I close and lock the bathroom door as well and stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I look disgusting, yet I somehow feel better than I have in a long time. I don’t cry often, and I hate it when I do. It’s not the crying itself that I hate, but it’s this moment right here, looking at myself after it’s over. Mascara drips down my face. My eyes are red and puffy, the same eyes I share with her. I look like Lennox.

Not shocking considering we were twins, but I mean, in this moment, when I look broken, it’s when I look most like her. She wasn’t always broken. She was once full of joy, love, and light before she succumbed to the darkness that filled the world. She stepped into that black hole and could never find her way out of it. What hurts is that this is how I remember her most. This is theversion of herself she left for me to remember, eternally written in that stupid journal of hers to torment me.

I continue to stare until it isn’t my sister’s face I’m looking at, but my own. It’s only then that I realize the main difference between myself now and Lennox then. Our eyes may be the same, but there’s still light in mine. Hope for something more. Hope for the future. Hope is something she never had. Even when I’ve tried not to hope over the years, it’s there, lingering. It’s how I’ve managed to get myself to where I am. I realize it’s time I stop looking at it as such a bad thing.

I turn on the shower, letting it heat up as I get undressed. I step inside, letting the scalding water burn my skin. I stand there until my skin is bright red and pruned. Then I finally move. I wash my body, my face, my hair, and I shave. It’s not until I’m done that I even realize I cut my ankle with the razor. Flashbacks attempt to roll through my head like a fucked-up movie as I watch the blood fall. I watch it mix with water and circle down the drain.

Red. Blood. So much blood. It’s all there, seared into my memories as a painful reminder of what I lost. A painful reminder of the losses I’ll never escape. But it’s also a reminder that while the loss will always be there, Demi is right. It’s time for me to stop living in the past and enjoy my life in the present.

I step out of the shower, dry myself, and get dressed before walking back into my bedroom. I grab the journal from the night table drawer and climb into bed. I open it to entry number four. The last entry that I’ll read since I refuse to read the fifth. I stare at the words in front of me, the words I’ve read hundreds of times and decide this will be the last time I read them. This will be the last time I torment myself with her words. And with that, I start reading.

TWENTY-SIX

DEPRESSION

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

Kaden

“Hey, can we talk?” I ask Asher as I walk into the back room of the shop that functions as our break room. It’s not much, a small room with a mini fridge and microwave, a black leather couch in the corner, and a wooden table with chairs in the middle. Asher sits on the couch, his face glued to his phone, actively ignoring my existence.

He’s been acting this way all morning. After Demi and Lo left last night, he looked like he was ready to lay into me. I rarely ever see Asher get pissed. Normally he’s the one calming me down when I lose my temper. Last night though, he looked like he was using every ounce of self-control he had to stop himself from pounding his fist into my face. I get it, I was a fucking dick, I’d want to beat the shit out of me too. Why he was acting that way for Demi though is what concerns me.

“Ash, come on. You can fucking yell at me if you want, but I already apologized to Demi. We’re good. What I don’t understand is why you and I aren’t?”

He keeps his attention on his phone, his fingers moving quickly over the keyboard typing. I wait a minute, watching while something or someone on there makes him smile. I’mabout to give up when he finally looks up to me, all traces of the smile gone from his face.

“Your sister’s a good person, and she’s got her own shit. I don’t know what and even if I did, it’s on you to ask her, but she doesn’t deserve the shit you put her through last night. I don’t want to yell at you, it’s not my place. Demi and I are just friends. I won’t lie and say my mind hasn’t gone there. You know me well enough to know it has, but I would never act on it with her. I don’t do relationships. She deserves more than I could ever offer her, and she knows that too. That doesn’t mean I like seeing her treated that way.”

“I fucking know that, Ash. She’s my sister. I don’t want to see her upset either, and I definitely don’t want to be the one making her upset. I let my own shit stop me from seeing the full picture with her. It was fucked, and I regretted what I said as quickly as I said it. I apologized and made sure she knew,” I say, and I mean it.

I called Demi as soon as I woke up this morning. I felt like shit all night, and I would’ve called sooner, but I’d talked to Lo before she went to bed, and she told me to give her some space for the night. Demi was quieter than I’d ever heard her on the phone. Completely different from the loud, lively, and sometimes annoying little sister I’ve been getting to know.

I apologized to her and tried to explain that everything I said had nothing to do with her and everything to do with her father. Not that that’s an excuse for speaking to her the way I did, but I needed her to understand that I didn’t mean the words that I said, and she seemed like she did. She said she forgave me, and we both agreed we needed to actually talk, and not over the phone. I know there are pieces of her life that I’ve created in my head that probably aren’t true. I just hope that one day she trusts me enough to fill me in as to what those pieces are.

I walk over to the couch and sit down at the opposite end. “And as for you and Demi, I trust you. Mostly.”

“You should trust me, Kade. I’m not gonna fuck around with her. Like I said, I can tell she’s got enough of her own shit. She’s just a good friend,” he says, and I nod.

“So, we’re good?” I ask.

“Yeah, we’re good.” He smiles genuinely. “Shit, I got an appointment.” He jumps up after looking at the time on his phone and walks out the door.

My next appointment isn’t for another fifteen minutes, so I stay sitting on the break room couch, scrolling through my phone to pass the time. Lo is working until eight o’clock tonight and then spending the night at home with Demi again. She said Theo and Gabby are also coming over for movie night since all three of them have off tomorrow. I’m happy that she gets to have a stress-free night with her friends. But I’m also jealous as fuck that she’s spending her night with them instead of me. Both things can be true.

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